Table Of ContentGRINGOLANDIA
Globalization and Community
Susan E. Clarke, Series Editor
Dennis R. Judd, Founding Editor
Volume 29 Volume 21
Gringolandia: Lifestyle Migration Turkish Berlin: Integration Policy
under Late Capitalism and Urban Space
Matthew Hayes Annika Marlen Hinze
Volume 28 Volume 20
Renew Orleans? Globalized Struggling Giants: City- Region
Development and Worker Governance in London, New York,
Resistance after Katrina Paris, and Tokyo
Aaron Schneider Paul Kantor, Christian Lefèvre,
Asato Saito, H. V. Savitch, and
Volume 27
Andy Thornley
Globalized Authoritarianism:
Megaprojects, Slums, and Class Volume 19
Relations in Urban Morocco Does Local Government Matter? How
Koenraad Bogaert Urban Policies Shape Civic Engagement
Elaine B. Sharp
Volume 26
Urban Policy in the Time of Obama Volume 18
James DeFilippis, Editor Justice and the American Metropolis
Clarissa Rile Hayward and
Volume 25
Todd Swanstrom, Editors
The Servant Class City: Urban
Revitalization versus the Working Volume 17
Poor in San Diego Mobile Urbanism: Cities and
David J. Karjanen Policymaking in the Global Age
Eugene McCann and Kevin Ward,
Volume 24
Editors
Security in the Bubble: Navigating
Crime in Urban South Africa Volume 16
Christine Hentschel Seeking Spatial Justice
Edward W. Soja
Volume 23
The Durable Slum: Dharavi Volume 15
and the Right to Stay Put Shanghai Rising: State Power and Local
in Globalizing Mumbai Transformations in a Global Megacity
Liza Weinstein Xiangming Chen, Editor
Volume 22 Volume 14
The Fragmented Politics of A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men
Urban Preservation: Beijing, and Gangsta Culture
Chicago, and Paris John M. Hagedorn
Yue Zhang
(continued on page 267)
GRINGOLANDIA
Lifestyle Migration under Late Capitalism
MATTHEW HAYES
Globalization and Community, Volume 29
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Portions of chapter 1 were previously published in a different form in “Moving
South: The Economic Motives and Structural Context of North America’s
Emigrants in Cuenca, Ecuador,” Mobilities 10, no. 2 (2015): 267– 84; available
online at http://www.tandfonline.com/. Portions of chapter 3 were previously
published in a different form in “ ‘It Is Hard Being the Different One All the
Time’: Gringos and Racialized Identity in Lifestyle Migration to Ecuador,” Ethnic
and Racial Studies 38, no. 6 (2014): 943– 58; available online at http://www
.tandfonline.com/. Portions of chapter 5 were previously published in a different
form in “Into the Universe of the Hacienda: Lifestyle Migration, Individualism,
and Social Dislocation in Vilcabamba, Ecuador,” Journal of Latin American
Geography 14, no. 1 (2015): 79–1 00; available online at http://www.tandfonline
.com/.
Copyright 2018 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hayes, Matthew F. (Matthew Frederick), author.
Title: Gringolandia : lifestyle migration under late capitalism / Matthew Hayes.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2018] | Series: Globalization
and community ; Volume 29 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018008955 (print) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0491-3 (hc) |
ISBN 978-1-5179-0492-0 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: Emigration and immigration–Social aspects. | Transnationalism. |
Lifestyles–Economic aspects.
Classification: LCC JV6225 .H39 2018 (print) | DDC 304.8/86624—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018008955
UMP BmB 2018
For Linda Freeman, whose Comparative Politics and
Development class disabused me of some liberal truisms
I took to be self- evident
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Introduction: Lifestyle Migration and Global Sociology 1
1 Geoarbitrage and the Offshoring of Retirement 35
2 Migrant Imaginaries 63
3 Gringo Identities 91
4 Transforming the City 115
5 The Hacienda 149
6 Lifestyle Migration, Transnational Gentrification, 183
and Social Justice
Acknowledgments 209
Appendix: Methodology 215
Notes 221
Bibliography 237
Index 261
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
Lifestyle Migration and Global Sociology
Diana’s hearty smile stood out immediately in the café where
we had arranged to meet, across the street from her apart-
ment in Cuenca, Ecuador.1 She lived in a neighborhood that has
come to be called “Gringolandia”— a backhanded reference to
the growing number of “gringo” foreigners residing in the area’s
condo blocks. Diana was a sixty- year-o ld retiree from Eastern
Canada who had left her husband of twenty- five years at home
and moved to Ecuador in search of adventure. She was a vibrant,
outgoing woman, with expectations of the future that seemed to
mark a break with those she had previously had about this phase
of her life. Diana had decided to live out her retirement half a
world away from home, her husband, her family, and her friends.
Diana’s decision to move to Ecuador’s third largest city, twenty-
five hundred meters above sea level, seemed both exciting and out
of the ordinary to me. The city is not well known in Canada or the
United States, and Diana had little familiarity with the language
or culture— though she did have a desire to learn more. More-
over, it is a city marked by deep inequalities and an average house-
hold income of about $700 a month, well below Diana’s C anadian
pension. These were to be the themes of our conversation in the
café, which abutted a four- lane, concrete artery that runs through
the center of Gringolandia. Racing traffic and passing blue public
transit buses, spewing plumes of thick black smoke, punctuated
our discussion. We drank weak Ecuadorian coffee as great gobs
of rain smacked against the plastic awning. We both wore sweat-
ers, because the altitude makes daytime temperatures rather cool.
Diana had lived in Cuenca for more than a year at that point and
was still excited to share her story.
< 1 >
